If there were a hall of fame for the worst tyrants of all time, these guys would be shoo-ins. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be discussing the most infamous dictatorial leaders throughout history.
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00:00The story goes that Romania's bottomless well of tyranny, catastrophe,
00:04and overall human misery can all be traced back to one terrifying ruler.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be discussing the most infamous dictatorial
00:13leaders throughout history.
00:15He gave us the KGB, he gave us the Soviet labor camps, he gave us summary executions.
00:20We don't know how many people died at his hand.
00:25Benito Mussolini, Italy.
00:27Mussolini was a unifying force for the Italian people,
00:31and they had faith in him and they had a belief in him.
00:35This il Duce of Italy was one of the most infamous fascist leaders in history.
00:40Benito Mussolini was also one of the three Axis Powers leaders during World War II,
00:46a tyrant that ruled his country via fear and intimidation.
00:50The socialist influences of Mussolini's early life as a journalist
00:55pivoted into Italian nationalism after he was discharged from the army in 1917.
01:01He knows the power of the written word, he knows the power of expression,
01:04and he knows how to harness it.
01:07This shift led to aggressive expansionist policies,
01:10wars, and accusations of human rights violations,
01:14including the use of chemical weapons by Italy.
01:17Mussolini's capitulation to Hitler's whims during the Second World War cost him, however,
01:23and he was eventually caught while fleeing into exile,
01:26and executed by communist resistance fighters.
01:29You know, he was on the run, he was desperate, he was running for his life.
01:35Pol Pot, Cambodia
01:37The reign of Pol Pot over Cambodia was known on a global scale,
01:42thanks to the totalitarian regime of his Khmer Rouge.
01:46The fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge was met with rejoicing in the streets of the city.
01:53But within hours, the mood abruptly changed.
01:56Pot held a major position of power for nearly 20 years,
02:00and during that time, assisted in the Khmer Rouge's racist and genocidal practices.
02:07Those seen as being disloyal, not hardworking enough,
02:10or guilty of such minor offenses as hunting rats for food,
02:14could be taken away and murdered.
02:16This era of Cambodian history was also infamous for its anti-intellectual policies,
02:22whereby scores of ethnically targeted minorities were eliminated.
02:26Life under Pol Pot went beyond mere repression,
02:30and the turmoil of this existence inspired films such as 1984's The Killing Fields,
02:36which starred a real-life Cambodian refugee, Dr. Heng S. Noor.
02:46Kim Il-sung, North Korea
02:53Kim Il-sung is everywhere in North Korea.
02:56Pictures of the country's founder adorn every single building and home,
03:00along with his son Kim Jong-il.
03:01The current political climate of North Korea didn't come to pass in a vacuum,
03:06but was instead shaped by generations of leaders.
03:09Kim Il-sung, one of the country's most notorious tyrants,
03:13founded North Korea and established a family dynasty that has essentially forced
03:17a restrictive cult of personality over its citizens' daily lives.
03:21Kim Il-sung's political philosophy was known as Juche,
03:25which aimed to make North Korea a self-sufficient and sovereign state,
03:30independent of foreign economic or military aid.
03:33However, these policies led to economic stagnation and a nationwide famine in the 1990s.
03:39Even today, freedoms of the press and speech in North Korea remain heavily controlled and restricted.
03:46Kim Il-sung transformed the once prosperous and peaceful kingdom
03:50into a dictatorship that emphasizes war over human rights.
03:54This legacy has been carried out by his descendants into the 21st century.
03:58Saddam Hussein, Iraq
04:00Saddam Hussein's rule over Iraq was one fraught with contradiction.
04:05Saddam Hussein had a certain straightforward,
04:08brutal efficiency as he propelled himself towards absolute control of Iraq.
04:13On one hand, he took advantage of an energy crisis in the 1970s and exported oil,
04:18which boosted the country's revenues.
04:20This allowed his government to implement universal health care for its citizens,
04:24as well as improve the educational system.
04:27Saddam gave us a lot of things.
04:29There were the development of the country, of the city particularly.
04:33There were always cars and gifts and all of these things being given.
04:38But I think what he took away from us in the meantime was actually our very souls.
04:42On the other hand, however, Hussein's Baathist ideology of Iraqi nationalism
04:48eventually led to the Iran-Iraq War, which decimated Iraq's economy
04:53due to sanctions and excessive military spending.
04:56In the aftermath of this conflict, his regime launched the Anfal campaign,
05:02committing genocide against Kurdish rebels who were sympathetic to Iran.
05:06Hussein remains a polarizing figure among Iraqis,
05:10lauded by some for resisting Western imperialism,
05:13and criticized by others for his authoritarianism.
05:16We never thought that Saddam would be removed, never.
05:20So when I saw them, I felt hope.
05:22Mao Zedong, China
05:24Over the years, many ruthless world leaders and tyrants have drawn inspiration
05:29straight from the political playbooks of China's Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong.
05:34The red leader's blueprint for conquest, protracted guerrilla war,
05:38united front, elimination of all opposition, has accomplished its aims.
05:43Mao founded the People's Republic of China,
05:45and was responsible for the deaths of millions,
05:48thanks to what became known as his Great Leap Forward.
05:52This ambitious push to transition China from an agrarian society to an industrialized one
05:58came at a devastating cost, as millions sacrificed their lives due to famine.
06:04Mao's cult of personality also resulted in an anti-intellectual persecution,
06:09totalitarian control, and the mass execution of countless dissidents.
06:14Teachers were the target of the political campaign.
06:19Mao taught us they have to receive the re-education by the worker and peasant.
06:26Vladimir Lenin, Russia
06:28In a park outside Moscow, these are the ghosts of communism past, like a freak show of fallen idols.
06:37And the red star of this show is Vladimir Lenin.
06:41The former Soviet Union possesses a long-standing legacy of chaotic
06:45and often violent political tumultuousness.
06:48Vladimir Lenin rose to power via the October Revolution of 1917,
06:54in an armed coup that set the stage for his Bolshevik government.
06:58Leninist policies would dictate Russia's political course for decades,
07:02but it was also widely known for seeking out opposing voices and silencing them permanently.
07:08This era of Red Terror may have officially come to a close by the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922,
07:15but the same tactics of brutal control continued well after Lenin's death,
07:19as Joseph Stalin stepped in to fill the political void.
07:23Vladimir Lenin is little more than a museum piece now to most Russians,
07:27a curiosity, a relic of a lost world.
07:31Ismail Enver, Ottoman Empire, also known as modern-day Turkey
07:36Ismail Enver was one of the so-called Three Pashas,
07:40whose tight-end dictatorial control defined much of the Ottoman Empire and its history.
07:46Early in his career, he was celebrated as a war hero,
07:49specifically for his efforts during the Young Turk Revolution in 1908.
07:54However, it was Ismail Enver's legacy as a leader,
07:57pasha, and prime minister that went on to be forever linked to the Armenian Genocide.
08:03I am also happy that this day will come when the Armenian Genocide will end.
08:12I love you. I remember you.
08:15Enver's admiration of Germanic political policies served as tinder for the fires of racism and
08:21ethnic cleansing that defined the Genocide.
08:24He was later tried in absentia for war crimes and convicted,
08:28although the official sentence of death was never formally carried out.
08:33Vlad Tep, Wallachia, also known as modern-day Romania
08:37The story goes that Romania's bottomless well of tyranny,
08:41catastrophe, and overall human misery can all be traced back to one terrifying ruler.
08:46The legacy of Vlad III, also known as Vlad Tep, also known as Vlad the Impaler,
08:51was already being written during his lifetime as Voivode of Wallachia.
08:56Tales of his cruelty spread throughout the mid to late 1400s,
09:00especially of Tep's penchant for having prisoners and enemies impaled.
09:04Vlad spent much of his life constructing a fearsome persona.
09:09In some ways, his reputation was so extreme that it haunts the entire world.
09:14Yet in what is now known as Romania, there were still some who saw Tep as a war hero,
09:20thanks to military campaigns against both regional boyars,
09:24as well as the Ottoman Empire.
09:26Still, the legacy of this Eastern European prince is better known today
09:30for his reign of brutal violence and total control over a dangerous region,
09:34as well as for inspiring the legend of Count Dracula.
09:38His subjects called him prince.
09:41I called him father.
09:44But the world would come to know him as Dracula.
09:49Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union.
09:52During what many historians termed Stalin's reign of terror,
09:55no one was safe from his ambition.
09:57A Stalin-led Soviet Union may have joined the Allied Nations during World War II,
10:02but that still does not erase this complicated leader's reputation as a paranoid tyrant.
10:08His adaptation of Marxist and Leninist political ideas would eventually spread so heavily into
10:13totalitarian control that it earned the new moniker of Stalinism.
10:18This was a cult of personality,
10:20a country that was led by this idealized image of one man and his vision of total control.
10:26In terms of ruthlessness, bloodlust,
10:29Stalin remains one of the greatest villains of the 20th century.
10:34Freedom of the individual was held down and punishable by death under Stalin,
10:39with work camps, or gulags, springing up to house Soviet prisoners.
10:44Overall, the shocking death toll from his tyrannical rule
10:47is said to have numbered in the millions.
10:49He gave us the KGB, he gave us the Soviet labor camps,
10:53he gave us summary executions.
10:54We don't know how many people died at his hand in his own country
10:59for those reasons that were real and imagined,
11:02because they did not play by Stalin's rules.
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11:20Adolf Hitler, Germany
11:22Adolf Hitler was a fanatical leader, a megalomaniac,
11:25who led his country and many others into the abyss.
11:29It's perhaps the most obvious name to appear on this list,
11:32yet it remains important to study the coal black legacy of Adolf Hitler,
11:37if only to ensure that it never happens again.
11:40Hitler was a demagogue,
11:41one that exploits the innermost fears and concerns of people
11:45in order to gain political power or influence.
11:48His policies of ethnic cleansing and totalitarian control over Germany,
11:53through the Nazi political party,
11:55created seismic cultural reverberations that are still being felt today.
11:59But it wasn't only the Jewish people who felt suffering
12:02as a result of the Holocaust and Hitler's Germany.
12:05Millions of those deemed undesirable under Nazi doctrine
12:09also experienced persecution during this era,
12:12including some German citizens.
12:15We'll be endlessly fascinated by what A drove him
12:19and B, why the German people decided to follow him.
12:22Who do you feel is the worst leader of all time?
12:25Let us know in the comments.
12:27Idi Amin was a brutal dictator,
12:30one of the worst of the last hundred years.
12:39ID Amin was a brutal dictator,
12:41one of the worst of the last hundred years.
12:44He was a brutal dictator,
12:46one of the worst of the last hundred years.
12:48He was a brutal dictator,
12:50one of the worst of the last hundred years.
12:52He was a brutal dictator,
12:54one of the worst of the last hundred years.
12:56He was a brutal dictator,
12:58one of the worst of the last hundred years.
13:00He was a brutal dictator,
13:02one of the worst of the last hundred years.
13:04He was a brutal dictator,
13:06one of the worst of the last hundred years.